Why does YouTube Erase Movie Trailers?: Is it Blood, Skin, or Quality?

Recently The Frozen Ground (2012) movie trailer was released and immediately taken down from YouTube, begging the question: why does YouTube erase certain movie trailers? Was it the trailer’s blood, skin or its quality? Even clips of The Frozen Ground trailer were taken down, including my own.

One of those clips was of Vanessa Hudgens dancing in her underwear at a night club. Was that the reason the clip and the trailer were taken down? Is Vanessa Hudgens stripping, is Vanessa Hudgens dancing, is the touted stripper Vanessa Hudgens, the former Disney star and Mouseketeer, really that offensive and objectionable?

The Vanessa Hudgens The Frozen Ground photos:

Vanessa HudgensThe Frozen Ground

Vanessa HudgensThe Frozen Ground

I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary or over-the-top in Hudgens’ stage moment but others seemed to. This movie trailer, like all the rest, was manufactured to garner attention for the film and it did.

Quality

The Frozen Ground trailer wasn’t the best trailer I have seen for a film so maybe that was the reason it was pulled by VoltagePicturesLLC. I thought the trailer’s gruesome nature made up for any structural quirks it might have had though but maybe I am wrong.

I do not know if YouTube asked VoltagePicturesLLC to take down The Frozen Ground trailer or YouTube did so because of complaints and said VoltagePictures didn’t want it online. It makes no diffenerce. There are only two reasons why it would be taken down: its skin content or its quality. It couldn’t have been the latter because why release an HD trailer (1080p) if you weren’t satisfied with its quality?

Money and Control

I have seen trailers for films released on YouTube where YouTube tells you that you are copyright infringing on the studio behind the film, the trailer is deleted, and your YouTube account is given one of three copyright infringement strikes. How is promoting a movie studio’s film for them and expending your sweat equity in the process infringing on them?

Movie studios want people to watch the trailer on their YouTube Channel, a channel they have branded and monetized, not yours. They want the cheddar and the perks all to themselves.

I doubt this was the reason why The Frozen Ground trailer was deleted though. Is the film tracking so well that Voltage Pictures wants only one source available on YouTube to see the trailer, their own?

Blood and Skin

Can the skin content of The Frozen Ground trailer be the reason it was pulled?

You would think clips like that (actual death) and red band horror movie trailers and so forth would get instantly banned but that is not the case. The people that monitor YouTube, view YouTube, upload to YouTube are all desensitived to violence, gore, people being shot, stabbed, crushed, dropped, sliced, or bludgeoned to death.

When YouTube trailers and uploads pop up containing that material, its nothing. A non-event. Status quo.

That is not the case with skin.

With skin, especially what is deemed excessive skin (Vanessa Hudgens spreading her legs as she stripped while wearing a thong), YouTube may come down like a ton of bricks. The content may get an age restriction on it or get reported and deleted as inappropriate. That is what happend when I uploaded: Dancing with the Stars (Showmatch) Strip Dance: Silvina Escudero onto YouTube.

All those people that do not see anything wrong with blood and gore uploads will go through the process of reporting skin or sexually related content when it bears its teeth on YouTube, especially (it seems) if it pertains to someone once considered family-friendly and wholesome (Hudgens).

Conclusion

The winner between blood vs skin on YouTube is blood, just like with the movie and TV industry. In the case of The Frozen Ground trailer, it may be an anomaly or a double-standard is in play. Once again, I vote for the latter since this, this, and this are online on YouTube as well and have been for years.

About the author

Rollo Tomasi

A Political Science and MBA grad who started FilmBook during an eCommerce B-School course in 2008. Cinema and TV addict. Former writer at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and Alternative Film Guide. In addition to writing for FilmBook, he also edits the copy published on the website, manages its writing staff, manages the back-end operations, site finances, its social network accounts, and works with publicists, actors, and companies on press coverage and promotions. He has also created ProMovieBlogger.com and Trending Awards.com.

I was looking around Youtube last night for a bit. And, I found “Felony Fights.” It is like cage match fighting. I could not believe that it was on Youtube. So, I totally don’t understand why a stripping sequence was taken down.

Are you still getting strikes from “infringement?” I hardly upload to Youtube anymore because their rules are so dictatorial. I prefer third party video hosting companies. Obviously, I am not a big fan of Youtube either.

What happens if you are sent the video, or have access permissions to it via press avenues (i.e. ftp)? Will this also throw a channel owner in violation? I oftentimes have access to the material and I usually don’t post the trailers I get anyway. I have a few on my channel but are not for monetary gain.

That’s a strange one alright. YouTube’s banning practices are suspect. I uploaded a video I edited using clips from the Dark Knight Rises prologue and it was taken down. Admittedly it was a bootleg. I can understand that. Then I upload a video with clips of Catwoman from The Tonight Show and it gets taken down. It doesn’t make sense to me. It was on television!

Annoying’s what it is. I noticed that a few of the studios that I am following are uploading the old trailers to films covered in company acquisitions. I imagine those same trailers will be tagged with violations on channels other than their own now. I thought that it wouldn’t make be a big deal if no advertising accompany the trailers. Seems that I was wrong.

Originally posted on Youtube the trailer under my name got pulled and I got hit with a “copyright strike”, even though I gave due credit and statement of copyright regarding Amber Entertainment.

Youtube wanted to monetize this trailer, TWICE, but I had to decline because of the copywritten material. Suppose I had accepted-Youtube would have had to admit to wrong-doing, as would I, for allowing the monetization.I will mention this to Youtube when I ring them up later on this year. As for now, though, I find it very highly amusing that Lionsgate doesn’t even *know* what to do with their picture, release- wise. 25 million into this project and still it sits, gathering dust. THAT is what I refer to as “Arne’s Revenge”-The power to send out, subconciously, bad , bad thoughts to people who wronged me for no good reason, other than they CAN. And THAT, is just *wrong*……..